collected thoughts while running
September 15th, 2005 @ 11:34 pm | dc | Post a CommentTonight I went running in the Embassy neighborhood, a small and quiet pocket of Northwest DC with grand, old homes and, you guessed it - lots of embassies. The area is sandwiched between Dupont, Rock Creek Park, Woodley Park, and Kalorama Triangle.
To me, the neighborhood seems a bit anonymous and a bit exotic. Compared to the generic suburban landscape I grew up in, here I run past Big Houses, some with imposing iron gates and security cameras. Black sedans with tinted windows and diplomatic license plates. Flags of countries I don’t recognize hanging over doorways. I wonder - Do I not know them because they weren’t even countries when I studied World Flags years ago, or am I the product of a declining public education?
The sky was lighter on one side of the horizon and darker on the other - The kind of dusk where you have to focus on everything very carefully because there is no contrast between the air and the objects. Unlike during my runs through any other neighborhood, few others shared the sidewalks with me tonight. My senses seemed acute, though. The aroma of incense nearly overpowered me as I passed by one house.
Although it was quickly getting dark (Autumn is so near), it was still warm and muggy. And Friday morning is trash pick up day. Each house I passed with my slow gait I could smell a week’s worth of food remnants lingering in the stale air. It seemed funny to me that the most potent signs of life were the empty industrial-sized boxes of tomatoes and canisters of coffee of an unrecognized foreign brand laying on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up. I could imagine some of the mouth-watering meals that were prepared in these homes. That’s how you know that real people - lovers, families, children - live behind these beautiful facades.
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